L'After
School ended on Friday a week ago. I moved out of Motzstraße (ironically, "Mope Street") with a fair amount of regret last Saturday, not least because I had to leave behind the borrowed bike. To my dismay, I also found out a few days before my departure that I could have stayed until July 7 by arranging as much with Herr D. I hadn't asked because the school had specifically said not to bother, and he hadn't been there to ask anyway. In any case, I'd already busted my butt finding a place to go after school ended, and the room in Prenzlauerberg was already reserved, so I went with the reassurance that at least the new place would have wi-fi -- one of the only down sides of the Motzstraße apartment, which didn't.
Plus, it would be another adventure. See Berlin through the windows of several apartments. Right?
Well, yes. Prenzlauerberg (Prenzlberg for short) is a beautiful neighbourhood, though Schöneberg ain't nothing to sneeze at, either. Both feature buildings from the Gründerzeit, the grand era of urban architecture in the late 19th-early 20th century, the dates dependent on who's talking about it. The style is instantly recognisable from the stratification, high ceilings (except on the top floor; that's what stratification's all about, more stairs and lower ceilings for the poor), elaborate doors, fancy moldings, etc. It reminds me of Paris here: cobblestoned streets for much of it, a pleasant green park, Kollwitzplatz, with a statue of Käthe Kollwitz watching over children, café culture sprawling over sidewalks in flagrante delicto, arty boutiques. I walked into a little fairytale basement where they produce customised books for children, the hero/ine renamed to your specifications. Talked at length with the owner -- "sometimes we do books in English," he said -- gave him my native-English-speaker/writer card.
My first task in Prenzlberg was to fill the bike-shaped hole in my life.
I'd seen a bike shop Friday when I'd scouted out the neighbourhood. Closed. Also, a rental place was already sold out. On the street, I happened to pass a Call-A-Bike. Didn't know what it was all about, so I called. This is a cleverly-designed program a bit like car rental, only less formal. Unrented Call-A-Bikes are available by phone. The bikes turn up all over. You don't have to bring it back, you just park it wherever you feel like (within a certain range) and report the corner when you stop the rental.
Let There Be Bike
And there was bike. In the long run, it's way more expensive to rent this way than to buy a Klunkenbike at a flea market, but so far my efforts to acquire one have not succeeded. Which might be OK from here, since the next few weeks are not going to be a model of stability anyway.
I'd happened to move to Prenzlberg just in time for Fête de la Musique, an official Berlin Thing, on which day musicians set up on street corners and play. The police look on in envy, wishing they could pounce. A pretty rancid punk rock outfit set up outside my balcony. I went riding.
On the way to the Bioladen ("organic store"), I heard an electronic band that was so captivating I had to park the bike and dance. It was great. Jahcoozi, a dubstep group, with a female singer from London and two guys, one Israeli, one German, manning Ableton Live. They rocked it. I met them all, exchanged contact info.
And this would not have happened if I had stayed in Motzstraße. Reminded me of why I came here in the first place -- music.
Afterwards, I met R. and S. at the Insel der Jugend -- no more boring walk down Puschkinallee. I cut out at 3 am to go to the Ministerium für Entspannung, found a line outside the place (!) -- must have been the effect of Fête de la Musique, the tradition to let everyone in for free that night. In any case, not only was there a line, but it wasn't moving into the venue -- too many people. So I went home and slept, secure in the knowledge the party would still be going on long after I woke up.
Sure enough, when I showed up Sunday afternoon, they were all outside in the backyard, music still pounding away. These people had commitment. They hadn't cheated and slept like me, unless you counted on-site beach-chair snoozing. There was some chilling-out to accomplish before nightfall and the resumption of full-on psytrance in the main hut. A DJ booth made of bamboo presided over the backyard, the bedraggled partygoers draped over weathered furniture or shuffling across the dance floor. No one had shoes on. A fir and a birch tree sprouted out of the astroturf carpeting the ground, the wind rustling through the leaves. It felt great to dance under them, blissing out in the audio sweet spot, face up to the sunlit sky like a heliotrope.
As the new kid on the block, I introduced myself to people. "I'm from New York" is a great opening line here. Note: Explaining that you are from another country does not get you a discount on Berlin speed-talking. Or the intensity of accent... the Berlin accent is slowly yielding up its secrets, but it's more than a few vowel and consonant shifts. It's a rhythm and attitude thing, baby! Occasionally incomprehensible...
At 9pm (24 hours into the party), they turned off the music outside and moved back into the main room. No snowflakes this time. Someone had taken away the Jacob's Ladders and painted the black walls with Day-Glo aliens, mushrooms, and little winged pixies with squashy faces, salvia divinorum leaves, cartoon bears with knowing grins. From the ceiling hung garlands and, at the very center, a coloured globe drifting from deep blue to purple to green to red.
Street Value
There were many fine hours of music, and I had a great time until about 3am, when I realised my camera had taken a hike, along with all the shots I had taken of Berlin.
Well, now those shots are back with Mama Berlin, I suppose. It's still a big city here, and small valuables have to be nailed down like anywhere else.
This was the beginning of a difficult week.
First, I must explain that the original reservation I made for the room in Prenzlberg was for 10 days. This place isn't even as expensive as a cheap hotel, but day by day, it mounts up. Like renting a Call-A-Bike, it's ideally a short-term solution. A month at these rates heads towards New York prices... which is not why you move to Berlin, land of Elektromusik and low rents.
Also, I really thought I'd have the next place by July 1.
It's not that housing isn't plentiful here. It's just that on average, 4-7 other people are angling for the same apartment. They all gotta go somewhere. And if you're the lucky person who put the ad in the paper, you get kind of sick of calling people back after, say, the tenth candidate. But then if your first ten candidates are all acidheads, cat ladies, or greasy short guys with bits of spinach caught between their teeth, candidate eleven scores a late interview. But who knows if #11 already found a place? So it's just a lot of shifting tectonic plates. And it's nervewracking.
I spent rather a lot of this week searching for the next step, and trying not to panic. I felt my faith slipping. Had this move to Berlin been the final vanity -- the overconfidence of someone who hadn't done the life-scramble in eight years? And never in a foreign country?
Cappuccino and Combat Boots
I worked the Internet hard this week, a-gathering URLs, emailing and calling people, getting answers only infrequently, seeing places only when I actually made it onto the radar. Fear of phones long extinguished by necessity, I called a 4-person WG (Wohngemeinschaft: a shared apartment) in Lichtenberg, a place on the Eastern boundary of Party Central, the street names infested with Wagneriana: Hagenstraße, Freiaplatz, Siegfriedstraße. [Aside: the other Hagenstraße in Berlin is adjacent to Brahmsstraße. All very hilarious if you're into music history, Brahms and Wagner representing sides of a musical war, etc. OK, geek moment. Stopping now.]
Told my current housemate, a German writer who lives part-time in New York, about the Lichtenberg WG. "Hm," he said. "Odd neighbourhood. The neo-Nazis like to get together and drink coffee there." Swell! Though the image of neo-Nazis gathering at a café and sipping cappuccinos whilst playing footsie in their Doc Martens was kind of excellent.
Rode the Call-A-Bike there, and Lichtenberg didn't seem too extreme. A bit grubby, and minus the Gründerzeit grandeur, but basically fine. Inside, the WG was filled with nice people and a big room for me. We talked comfortably for a couple hours, and they said they'd let me know soon.
Kept working the internet in the meantime.
Along with the uncertainty of the housing issue, I missed school, missed being a part of something. The unease bloated: can I make a life for myself here at all? I looked at job listings, tried to imagine shoe-horning myself into technical writing and web positions, and got really unhappy, until I remembered: I want to work in music and audio. What were all those courses I just took and the certifications I got in Logic for? Fun? Incidentally, they were, but also serious. Paying the fees was not fun. The tests were not fun. I am simply so used to leaping to the old standard reliable day jobs that I forgot myself. Fear does that.
I drew up my music resumé and felt good for the first time in days. Applied for an audio internship. Hey, if I were just going to do the same stuff I'd been doing in New York, it would have been a lot easier to just stay there and keep trotting along with the program. All the Angst and the no-idea-how-I'm-going-to-pull-this-off -- this is the price of trying to do what I really want to do.
It's just that I underestimated the ferocity of the fear. I get it now. I get why people don't go for what they want. Because it usually puts you in a really, really scary place. One with less money, no guarantees, a lot of stale sweat, and let's not forget, the work of putting yourself out there in a world that doesn't know you.
But there's also something incredibly strong at the base of the desire. Just knowing who you are, what you've done, and what you want to do next gives you something to stand on. Because when you're in a new place alone, the least you can do is hang on to yourself -- not try to be what you think the world wants.
Saw a place near Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg, and while the neighbourhood itself was excellently funky, the actual room I'd have stayed in looked like a place where you could drink yourself to death. Something about the quality of the shadows, a bland shade of grey that sucked the colour out of everything.
Pattern Recognition
Afterward, I hung out on Oranienstraße, and ate at a little shop that specialised in vegetarian food. And, in a glory of urban randomness, someone I recognised walked in.
It was a guy from the Ministerium für Entspannung. He'd been in a beach chair looking rather dazed, and had a cast on his left arm. So I went up and talked to him. He was looking less dazed now, except for the surprise factor of some American girl walking up and going, "MfE, last Sunday, right?"
Turns out he used to work as a programmer, and it was so stressful and not-him that now he works in Veranstaltungstechnik -- event setup, audio mainly. Related to what I want to do. I asked him about it, and his advice was nebulous, "just be in the right places, meet people." We talked for a couple hours and traded email addresses. His middle and last names translate to "Ginger Bear."
When you're by yourself in a strange place, even a chance meeting like this is worth something. Pattern recognition. Just like in fiction, every time something appears twice it acquires dimension. The brain splurges on connections. Here's the universe playing peek-a-boo -- saw you before, see you again, be in the right places, meet people.
On the way home, the Lichtenberg WG called to say, "Works for us." So that's my last six weeks here. And the price is right, 210€/mo. Unfortunately, there's a spare five days in the equation. Fortunately, another friend of mine here is kindly lending me her floor then. She lives on the very tippy-top of a walk-up, so getting the elephants up there is going to be a total hell workout, but it's WAAY better than camping out in Volkspark Friedrichshain.
L'After
Went to two expat meetings this week. Monday, a group of six people trading German/English for practice, Friday, a poetry reading in English.
Friday evening I walked out to the backyard to ride to said poetry reading, and the Call-A-Bike wasn't there.
I couldn't believe it. Call-a-Bikes are like tanks. And they lock up with a bolt through the rear wheel that makes riding impossible. And it's not like, if you even succeeded in somehow getting the bolt out, you could ever resell it -- it's part of a fleet, and looks it. "Oh, no, this bike isn't hot!"
Still reeling with How and Why, I shambled out the front door, helmet in hand. I had a poetry reading to go to. In English. Once a month. Not missing it.
I got on the tram and simultaneously called Call-A-Bike. They told me to file a police report, and call them back with the docket number. After the HALT incident, I'd kind of been hoping for minimum involvement with the green-and-white-car set. Oh well.
As I hung up, my cellphone announced that I had less than 2€ on my card.
The first phone card place I tried after getting off the tram had no Vodafone cards left.
I called the police from a pay phone. They said to file in person at the precinct, Wedekindstraße 10. Good thing I carry a map of Berlin with me at all times. I was already half an hour late for the reading, but I figured late was better than never, even in Germany, so I asked if I could file afterwards, and they said yes.
I found a place that filled up my phone again. I went to the poetry reading. They hadn't started yet. The kitchen had just closed, so I had chocolate cake for dinner.
The poetry was great, met a bunch of people, had an excellent time, got some words of encouragement sorely needed after this week. Really, really glad I didn't let anything stop me from going.
At 2 a.m. I showed up at the police and gave the report. Though I'd just spent the evening speaking English, my German was on. The cop was bemused but actually had a sense of humour and we found ourselves laughing. Who the hell would steal a Call-A-Bike?
Unlikely venue for a nice conversation: comparing notes on Berlin and Brooklyn whilst filing a police report in the middle of the night, laughing all the way. Couldn't believe this guy was part of the outfit stopping bike riders on Martin-Luther-Straße. And I was happy to finally be laughing about everything that had happened. L'After is what you get when the pain dissolves into ridiculous.
Ironically, I took a Call-A-Bike on the way back to Prenzlberg. Half-expected them to drone, "Now try not to ruin this one, 007..."
Next week: camping. On purpose. Hopefully. Stay tuned.
Plus, it would be another adventure. See Berlin through the windows of several apartments. Right?
Well, yes. Prenzlauerberg (Prenzlberg for short) is a beautiful neighbourhood, though Schöneberg ain't nothing to sneeze at, either. Both feature buildings from the Gründerzeit, the grand era of urban architecture in the late 19th-early 20th century, the dates dependent on who's talking about it. The style is instantly recognisable from the stratification, high ceilings (except on the top floor; that's what stratification's all about, more stairs and lower ceilings for the poor), elaborate doors, fancy moldings, etc. It reminds me of Paris here: cobblestoned streets for much of it, a pleasant green park, Kollwitzplatz, with a statue of Käthe Kollwitz watching over children, café culture sprawling over sidewalks in flagrante delicto, arty boutiques. I walked into a little fairytale basement where they produce customised books for children, the hero/ine renamed to your specifications. Talked at length with the owner -- "sometimes we do books in English," he said -- gave him my native-English-speaker/writer card.
My first task in Prenzlberg was to fill the bike-shaped hole in my life.
I'd seen a bike shop Friday when I'd scouted out the neighbourhood. Closed. Also, a rental place was already sold out. On the street, I happened to pass a Call-A-Bike. Didn't know what it was all about, so I called. This is a cleverly-designed program a bit like car rental, only less formal. Unrented Call-A-Bikes are available by phone. The bikes turn up all over. You don't have to bring it back, you just park it wherever you feel like (within a certain range) and report the corner when you stop the rental.
Let There Be Bike
And there was bike. In the long run, it's way more expensive to rent this way than to buy a Klunkenbike at a flea market, but so far my efforts to acquire one have not succeeded. Which might be OK from here, since the next few weeks are not going to be a model of stability anyway.
I'd happened to move to Prenzlberg just in time for Fête de la Musique, an official Berlin Thing, on which day musicians set up on street corners and play. The police look on in envy, wishing they could pounce. A pretty rancid punk rock outfit set up outside my balcony. I went riding.
On the way to the Bioladen ("organic store"), I heard an electronic band that was so captivating I had to park the bike and dance. It was great. Jahcoozi, a dubstep group, with a female singer from London and two guys, one Israeli, one German, manning Ableton Live. They rocked it. I met them all, exchanged contact info.
And this would not have happened if I had stayed in Motzstraße. Reminded me of why I came here in the first place -- music.
Afterwards, I met R. and S. at the Insel der Jugend -- no more boring walk down Puschkinallee. I cut out at 3 am to go to the Ministerium für Entspannung, found a line outside the place (!) -- must have been the effect of Fête de la Musique, the tradition to let everyone in for free that night. In any case, not only was there a line, but it wasn't moving into the venue -- too many people. So I went home and slept, secure in the knowledge the party would still be going on long after I woke up.
Sure enough, when I showed up Sunday afternoon, they were all outside in the backyard, music still pounding away. These people had commitment. They hadn't cheated and slept like me, unless you counted on-site beach-chair snoozing. There was some chilling-out to accomplish before nightfall and the resumption of full-on psytrance in the main hut. A DJ booth made of bamboo presided over the backyard, the bedraggled partygoers draped over weathered furniture or shuffling across the dance floor. No one had shoes on. A fir and a birch tree sprouted out of the astroturf carpeting the ground, the wind rustling through the leaves. It felt great to dance under them, blissing out in the audio sweet spot, face up to the sunlit sky like a heliotrope.
As the new kid on the block, I introduced myself to people. "I'm from New York" is a great opening line here. Note: Explaining that you are from another country does not get you a discount on Berlin speed-talking. Or the intensity of accent... the Berlin accent is slowly yielding up its secrets, but it's more than a few vowel and consonant shifts. It's a rhythm and attitude thing, baby! Occasionally incomprehensible...
At 9pm (24 hours into the party), they turned off the music outside and moved back into the main room. No snowflakes this time. Someone had taken away the Jacob's Ladders and painted the black walls with Day-Glo aliens, mushrooms, and little winged pixies with squashy faces, salvia divinorum leaves, cartoon bears with knowing grins. From the ceiling hung garlands and, at the very center, a coloured globe drifting from deep blue to purple to green to red.
Street Value
There were many fine hours of music, and I had a great time until about 3am, when I realised my camera had taken a hike, along with all the shots I had taken of Berlin.
Well, now those shots are back with Mama Berlin, I suppose. It's still a big city here, and small valuables have to be nailed down like anywhere else.
This was the beginning of a difficult week.
First, I must explain that the original reservation I made for the room in Prenzlberg was for 10 days. This place isn't even as expensive as a cheap hotel, but day by day, it mounts up. Like renting a Call-A-Bike, it's ideally a short-term solution. A month at these rates heads towards New York prices... which is not why you move to Berlin, land of Elektromusik and low rents.
Also, I really thought I'd have the next place by July 1.
It's not that housing isn't plentiful here. It's just that on average, 4-7 other people are angling for the same apartment. They all gotta go somewhere. And if you're the lucky person who put the ad in the paper, you get kind of sick of calling people back after, say, the tenth candidate. But then if your first ten candidates are all acidheads, cat ladies, or greasy short guys with bits of spinach caught between their teeth, candidate eleven scores a late interview. But who knows if #11 already found a place? So it's just a lot of shifting tectonic plates. And it's nervewracking.
I spent rather a lot of this week searching for the next step, and trying not to panic. I felt my faith slipping. Had this move to Berlin been the final vanity -- the overconfidence of someone who hadn't done the life-scramble in eight years? And never in a foreign country?
Cappuccino and Combat Boots
I worked the Internet hard this week, a-gathering URLs, emailing and calling people, getting answers only infrequently, seeing places only when I actually made it onto the radar. Fear of phones long extinguished by necessity, I called a 4-person WG (Wohngemeinschaft: a shared apartment) in Lichtenberg, a place on the Eastern boundary of Party Central, the street names infested with Wagneriana: Hagenstraße, Freiaplatz, Siegfriedstraße. [Aside: the other Hagenstraße in Berlin is adjacent to Brahmsstraße. All very hilarious if you're into music history, Brahms and Wagner representing sides of a musical war, etc. OK, geek moment. Stopping now.]
Told my current housemate, a German writer who lives part-time in New York, about the Lichtenberg WG. "Hm," he said. "Odd neighbourhood. The neo-Nazis like to get together and drink coffee there." Swell! Though the image of neo-Nazis gathering at a café and sipping cappuccinos whilst playing footsie in their Doc Martens was kind of excellent.
Rode the Call-A-Bike there, and Lichtenberg didn't seem too extreme. A bit grubby, and minus the Gründerzeit grandeur, but basically fine. Inside, the WG was filled with nice people and a big room for me. We talked comfortably for a couple hours, and they said they'd let me know soon.
Kept working the internet in the meantime.
Along with the uncertainty of the housing issue, I missed school, missed being a part of something. The unease bloated: can I make a life for myself here at all? I looked at job listings, tried to imagine shoe-horning myself into technical writing and web positions, and got really unhappy, until I remembered: I want to work in music and audio. What were all those courses I just took and the certifications I got in Logic for? Fun? Incidentally, they were, but also serious. Paying the fees was not fun. The tests were not fun. I am simply so used to leaping to the old standard reliable day jobs that I forgot myself. Fear does that.
I drew up my music resumé and felt good for the first time in days. Applied for an audio internship. Hey, if I were just going to do the same stuff I'd been doing in New York, it would have been a lot easier to just stay there and keep trotting along with the program. All the Angst and the no-idea-how-I'm-going-to-pull-this-off -- this is the price of trying to do what I really want to do.
It's just that I underestimated the ferocity of the fear. I get it now. I get why people don't go for what they want. Because it usually puts you in a really, really scary place. One with less money, no guarantees, a lot of stale sweat, and let's not forget, the work of putting yourself out there in a world that doesn't know you.
But there's also something incredibly strong at the base of the desire. Just knowing who you are, what you've done, and what you want to do next gives you something to stand on. Because when you're in a new place alone, the least you can do is hang on to yourself -- not try to be what you think the world wants.
Saw a place near Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg, and while the neighbourhood itself was excellently funky, the actual room I'd have stayed in looked like a place where you could drink yourself to death. Something about the quality of the shadows, a bland shade of grey that sucked the colour out of everything.
Pattern Recognition
Afterward, I hung out on Oranienstraße, and ate at a little shop that specialised in vegetarian food. And, in a glory of urban randomness, someone I recognised walked in.
It was a guy from the Ministerium für Entspannung. He'd been in a beach chair looking rather dazed, and had a cast on his left arm. So I went up and talked to him. He was looking less dazed now, except for the surprise factor of some American girl walking up and going, "MfE, last Sunday, right?"
Turns out he used to work as a programmer, and it was so stressful and not-him that now he works in Veranstaltungstechnik -- event setup, audio mainly. Related to what I want to do. I asked him about it, and his advice was nebulous, "just be in the right places, meet people." We talked for a couple hours and traded email addresses. His middle and last names translate to "Ginger Bear."
When you're by yourself in a strange place, even a chance meeting like this is worth something. Pattern recognition. Just like in fiction, every time something appears twice it acquires dimension. The brain splurges on connections. Here's the universe playing peek-a-boo -- saw you before, see you again, be in the right places, meet people.
On the way home, the Lichtenberg WG called to say, "Works for us." So that's my last six weeks here. And the price is right, 210€/mo. Unfortunately, there's a spare five days in the equation. Fortunately, another friend of mine here is kindly lending me her floor then. She lives on the very tippy-top of a walk-up, so getting the elephants up there is going to be a total hell workout, but it's WAAY better than camping out in Volkspark Friedrichshain.
L'After
Went to two expat meetings this week. Monday, a group of six people trading German/English for practice, Friday, a poetry reading in English.
Friday evening I walked out to the backyard to ride to said poetry reading, and the Call-A-Bike wasn't there.
I couldn't believe it. Call-a-Bikes are like tanks. And they lock up with a bolt through the rear wheel that makes riding impossible. And it's not like, if you even succeeded in somehow getting the bolt out, you could ever resell it -- it's part of a fleet, and looks it. "Oh, no, this bike isn't hot!"
Still reeling with How and Why, I shambled out the front door, helmet in hand. I had a poetry reading to go to. In English. Once a month. Not missing it.
I got on the tram and simultaneously called Call-A-Bike. They told me to file a police report, and call them back with the docket number. After the HALT incident, I'd kind of been hoping for minimum involvement with the green-and-white-car set. Oh well.
As I hung up, my cellphone announced that I had less than 2€ on my card.
The first phone card place I tried after getting off the tram had no Vodafone cards left.
I called the police from a pay phone. They said to file in person at the precinct, Wedekindstraße 10. Good thing I carry a map of Berlin with me at all times. I was already half an hour late for the reading, but I figured late was better than never, even in Germany, so I asked if I could file afterwards, and they said yes.
I found a place that filled up my phone again. I went to the poetry reading. They hadn't started yet. The kitchen had just closed, so I had chocolate cake for dinner.
The poetry was great, met a bunch of people, had an excellent time, got some words of encouragement sorely needed after this week. Really, really glad I didn't let anything stop me from going.
At 2 a.m. I showed up at the police and gave the report. Though I'd just spent the evening speaking English, my German was on. The cop was bemused but actually had a sense of humour and we found ourselves laughing. Who the hell would steal a Call-A-Bike?
Unlikely venue for a nice conversation: comparing notes on Berlin and Brooklyn whilst filing a police report in the middle of the night, laughing all the way. Couldn't believe this guy was part of the outfit stopping bike riders on Martin-Luther-Straße. And I was happy to finally be laughing about everything that had happened. L'After is what you get when the pain dissolves into ridiculous.
Ironically, I took a Call-A-Bike on the way back to Prenzlberg. Half-expected them to drone, "Now try not to ruin this one, 007..."
Next week: camping. On purpose. Hopefully. Stay tuned.